While not neglecting any of the educated, gracious comments from Ted, I'm going to continue with this course I've plotted:
There is a lot of what I see as misinterpretation concerning baptismal nature and efficacy stemming from what I see as widespread Modernist mistakes—though some of these antedate the Modern/Enlightenment era. Here are some of the underlying tenets that I see necessary in a biblical view of the sacraments.
(1) Baptism is an act of God, not of man. We are misled when we ask what baptism does. Baptism doesn’t do anything. Rather, it is the triune God who acts for us in the “washing of water with the word” (where it is Christ who washes his church, Eph. 5:26). “The question therefore is not what the sacraments do to us, but what God does for us with them” (Michael Horton, God of Promise, p. 153).
(2) Grace is not a substance to be mechanically channeled, but the free favor of a loving, personal God. See my previous post on this. This is where the Roman church has completely strayed and what causes many Protestant churches to balk at talk of any sort of automatic “baptismal regeneration” or anything akin to it. Any notion of the sacraments working ex opere operato ("from the deed having been performed") is completely ruled out.
(3) God works immediately through means. Christian mysticists and evangelical revivalists have tended to favor some sort of “immediate” fellowship with God apart from means. However, the Bible tells us that Christ himself speaks to people and draws near to them through the preached Word (Rom. 10). A verbal message—whether incarnate, written words or an incarnate, spoken voice—are a means that God uses to bring us into fellowship with him. The gospel message is said to call people into fellowship with God and itself create new birth (2 Thess. 2:14; James 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23-25). God’s saving work is inseparable from physical means.
We can view the sacraments in the same fashion. As Jesus was the incarnate Word (John 1), so does he say that bread and wine are his body and blood through which his reconciling death is given for men. And in the Great Commission he commands his disciples to make more disciples by two means: baptizing them and teaching them. I could go on about this forever, but it would probably be easier to read this post.
At the same time, the “means of grace” don’t create some sort of detached intermediary between us and God. “There is [only] one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ"; and he is truly present and active in his Word and Sacraments. We can truly know him and find life in him therein; we can have immediate fellowship through means. This is because the forgiveness and life and newness offered us in baptism and the Eucharist are none other than Christ himself; salvation does not exist apart from Christ and union with him.
(4) Baptism is baptism. In all the references to baptism in the NT epistles, the Christian rite of water baptism is in view—not some separate “Spirit baptism.” The baptism of normal Christian experience must be in view, because nowhere else does Paul or other writers make any sort of distinction. When Paul writes to a body of believers about their baptism (e.g.,
(4) The body of Christ is the body of Christ—that is, the church. 1 Corinthians 12:13 says that “we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body.” It is clear from the following verses that that body is the visible church, which is “the body of Christ” (v. 27). We need to understand union with Christ in baptism as entrance into the visible church. It seems that for Paul there was no distinction between entering a renewing fellowship with the Head and entering the fellowship of his Body. This is what probably involves the greatest mystery of all regarding baptism.
(5) Rites actually change who we are. Scripture does affirm the human being as consisting of a "body," a "soul," and a "spirit". However, it's a mistake to separate what happens to the “spiritual me” from the “physical me,” as nothing ever actually happened to just me. This Greek matter-spirit dualism still exists despite being denounced and trashed and decried as heresy by the apostles and the church Fathers (see all of John’s Gospel and epistles). The Hebrew, and thus biblical, worldview knew nothing of this.
A rite involving water, or a ram’s head (ancient Near Eastern covenant acts), or a wedding ring, or signing a contract actually changes who we are. George W. Bush used to be a presidential candidate; now by virtue of his inauguration rite he is the President, with all the accompanying privileges and responsibilities. A man receives a ring upon his finger from his bride and now truly has a new identity: a husband. Sure, his infidelity to his wife may mean he’s a poor, unfaithful, reckless husband who betrays the pledge he made, but he is still a husband nonetheless. In fact, the covenant he made in his wedding vows and symbolized by wedding rings only further serves to condemn him as unfaithful.
4 comments:
Andrew,
First of all, thanks for your gracious mention of my comments.
I deleted my initial comments which I felt were too off the cuff and not sufficiently well thought out. I don't spend much time thinking about water baptism, especially in recent years. So to spend some time on it in good study is good for me.
Then I'll attempt to give a better answer of my own view with reference to your points here.
Thanks.
Andrew,
I submit a comment now, knowing that theological work is ongoing and community oriented, and also knowing that I never really feel ready or think myself ready for much of anything.
So I more than welcome some give and take here, some back and forth on what I say. Because that's one way the proverb is fulfilled of iron sharpening iron, surely.
I'd like to touch on your thought about modernism and Enlightenment influence. Every era has its philosophical bend which Christians are influenced by, and must learn to discern and resist. I know the Modern Enlightenment era which still permeates us to some extent, along with Postmodernity- largely, I think, a reaction to it- does make us prone to think in rationalistic and individualistic terms. This can and does affect theology at times, and I think you can find this everywhere within Protestantism and Calvinism, especially during its undisputed sway in the western world, such as during the 19th century.
But we must be careful to be true to Scripture itself, in carefully exegeting it- continuing of course to work on that, not letting the age get us off course from that by its influence, or by our reaction to it- such as we see among us Christians in some quarters influenced by "postmodernism".
"(1) Baptism is an act of God, not of man."
If baptism is an act of God, not of man, then why does Christ command his disciples to water baptize in Matthew 28? That makes no sense at all of that text, to me. Yes, man is told to baptize. Man there, is not to wait on God to baptize or something of the sort. So water baptism since it's commanded by God to humans, for humans to do and to obey- is not strictly speaking, an act of God.
As you well say later in this post:
...in the Great Commission he commands his disciples to make more disciples by two means: baptizing them and teaching them.
With reference of your citation of Ephesians 5:26, I want to quote Gordon Fee at some length here, from his "magesterial" work, God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (pp 780-781) concerning the use of loutron (I have to transliterate it) in Titus 3:3-5:
"First, as to the meaning of loutron. This, of course, is an especially
difficult and vexing issue. The problem has to do in part with how soon in the early church the "washing" in the rite of baptism was understood as going beyond the metaphor inherent in the act to some kind of reality itself; i.e., how soon a connection was made between the water used in the rite and the actual "washing away of sins" and "the interior cleansing of the life." In light of Paul's infrequent mention of baptism- especially so in conversion texts- and in light of his expressed attitude toward and clear separation of baptism from the work of the gospel in 1 Cor 1:13-17, one is especially hard pressed to see a connection either between baptism and the work of the Spirit or between baptism and conversion per se in the apostle Paul. The evidence of the preceding several hundred pages makes it abundantly clear that for Paul the crucial matter for Christian conversion is the work of the Spirit, and, as we have shown, it is extremely doubtful whether the three texts most often brought into the conversation here (1 Cor 6:11; 12:13; 2 Cor 1:21) are referring directly to baptism at all. Therefore, in light of the Pauline evidence (including the use of loutron in Eph 5:26), it is likely that Paul didn not intend "washing" to stand for "baptism" here. After all, he could have easily said that, had he so intended.
"That suggests, then, that the usage is metaphorical and should be translated "washing." That is, Paul is not saying that God saved us through baptism, but "through the spiritual washing effected by the Holy Spirit." On the other hand, the richness of the imagery makes it difficult to imagine that Christian baptism is not lying very close to the surface in such a metaphor. What is doubtful is that Paul considered baptism itself as the place where regeneration took place. This for him, always and ever, is the work of the Spirit. It is even more doubtful, especially in light of the grammar of this passage and what he says elsewhere, that Paul considers baptism to be the place where the Holy Spirit is received. The disavowal in 1 Cor 1:14-16 in light of 2:4-5, even if Paul is not playing down baptism as such, makes such a view nearly impossible to sustain. It takes the later church,...where rites tended to become more prominent, to make that connection."
(2) Grace is not a substance to be mechanically channeled, but the free favor of a loving, personal God.
I agree, an important point.
Protestant churches should balk at the notion of baptismal regeneration, only because it's not Scriptural.
(3) God works immediately through means.
Yes, of course. And as you do, you express this well!
Christian mysticists and evangelical revivalists have tended to favor some sort of “immediate” fellowship with God apart from means.
Okay.
The gospel message is said to call people into fellowship with God and itself create new birth (2 Thess. 2:14; James 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23-25).
Exactly, Andrew. You said it yourself. The gospel. And, as from Fee's above quotation, it is the Spirit and the Word (Scripture) that are central in the Chrisian life (as with Calvin in his "Institutes").
As Jesus was the incarnate Word (John 1), so does he say that bread and wine are his body and blood through which his reconciling death is given for men.
So only analogically. God becomes incarnate and thus becomes a real human being in Jesus who is the God-human as well as God the Son. Yet is still a real human being. The bread is not really Jesus' spiritual (and I might add to that, material, as in spiritual-material) body, nor is the wine really his blood. But this was an analogy pointing to his death for them, as their Passover Lamb, and as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
At the same time, the “means of grace” don’t create some sort of detached intermediary between us and God.
Agreed. Let me add to this that there is a sense in which God is present to us apart from any means of grace. Doesn't his Spirit live in us, both individually as well as corporately as the Body of Christ? Didn't Paul say that Christ lives in him, and that the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God? And that we have the very mind of Christ?
Any insistence that there must always be "means of grace" for God's immediate presence therefore is surely amiss.
“There is [only] one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ"; and he is truly present and active in his Word and Sacraments.
Only according as Scripture says. And not in the way at least much of Christian theology says.
...we can have immediate fellowship through means.
Amen.
This is because the forgiveness and life and newness offered us in baptism and the Eucharist are none other than Christ himself; salvation does not exist apart from Christ and union with him.
So you're saying that baptism and the Lord's Supper/the Eucharist because of Christ present in them, offers us forgiveness and life and newness? Is that what Scripture says in passages about salvation, conversion and regeneration? One may think so, but I strongly doubt it.
And let me quote Fee again, with reference to Romans 6 and baptism (p 500):
"The main point of 6:1-7:6 is to argue that trusting in the death of Christ as the way of obtaining God's righteousness (as right-standing) does not in fact lead to unrighteousness in terms of behavior- as some...apparently argue that it will (v. 1). Quite the contrary, Paul contends, the death of Christ does more than merely "justify the sinner." Because Christ's death and resurrection are integrally bound up in God's righteousizing act (as 5:6-11 makes clear), so the one who is joined to Christ in faith is also joined to Christ's death and resurrection, as evidenced by baptism in which the significance of that joining is actually reenacted....in 6:1-14, using the experience of baptism as imagery, he develops an argument that death and resurrection lead to the newness of life and thus release from one's former enslavement to sin."
(4) Baptism is baptism. In all the references to baptism in the NT epistles, the Christian rite of water baptism is in view—not some separate “Spirit baptism.”
While I believe baptism is often in view in places in which Spirit baptism has been posited (like in Romans 6), one cannot deny that there is Spirit baptism or baptism in or of the Spirit. And this Spirit baptism has to do with our very identity as the Church, the Body of Christ.
Not only that, but as Ben Witherington III says, the Spirit baptism and water baptism in the New Testament are never one and the same. On 1 Corinthians 12:13 (from Troubled Waters: Rethinking the Theology of Baptism, p 81):
"Immediately apparent is that the language is highly metaphorical. One does not literally drink in the Holy Spirit. But notice who Paul says is the one who baptized a person into Christ's body- the Holy Spirit himself! Paul is discussing in 1 Corinthians 12 the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts. Water baptism is nowhere the subject of discussion, and Paul has chosen to describe the spiritual experience of conversion by using the highly symbolic and metaphorical language, including baptismal language. In short, when Paul wants to talk about the actual spiritual transaction, he talks about faith and the work of the Spirit on and in the person. The confusion is entirely ours because he uses baptismal language to convey the richness of the meaning."
The baptism of normal Christian experience must be in view, because nowhere else does Paul or other writers make any sort of distinction.
Not sure what you mean here, Andrew. I guess the sentence following explains what you mean.
...perhaps more obvious is the fact that reception of the Holy Spirit is generally linked with water baptism (e.g., Acts 2:38; 10:47; 1 Cor. 12:13; Tit. 3:5)
In Acts 10:47 Cornelius and other Gentiles had already received the Spirit, prior to their being water baptized. This is a loose link, I believe, pointing towards the regenerating work of the Spirit. Titus 3:5 needs to be linked to 1 Cor 12:13 and the Ezekiel passages about cleansing and new life in the new covenant to come.
(4) The body of Christ is the body of Christ—that is, the church. 1 Corinthians 12:13 says that “we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body.” It is clear from the following verses that that body is the visible church, which is “the body of Christ” (v. 27). We need to understand union with Christ in baptism as entrance into the visible church.
If you mean water baptism in the last sentence, and clearly you do I think, then this all falls apart if indeed it is the Spirit who is doing the baptizing here in bringing the baptized one into the body of Christ, the church.
It seems that for Paul there was no distinction between entering a renewing fellowship with the Head and entering the fellowship of his Body. This is what probably involves the greatest mystery of all regarding baptism.
First sentence, a hearty "amen!" In fact, an emphatic, "amen!" But to then tie that and attibute it to water baptism (and you mean, God's working in and through water baptism) is to me, to misread what Scripture is saying here, or to misinterpret it. It is the Spirit who brings us in and regenerates us, through the word (Scripture, gospel) by faith. The Spirit brings us into this union with Christ, and in him united to each other.
(5) Rites actually change who we are.
Your words against dualism are well spoken! I like to say that the material and all of life for us is spiritual, to try to make this point. This dualism is an ugly fiend: anti-creation, anti-Incarnation, and therefore anti-Christ.
God changes us. The rite, I believe does not. It symbolizes richly God's saving work for us and to us, in Christ.
It's what's behind the rite that changes who we are, as from your apt analogies, but not the rite itself. The rite can be a powerful symbol or sort of enactment of what is taking place, but in itself only reenacts or reminds us of this change.
Hopefully, Andrew, this can be a case of iron sharpening iron. I'm quite often mistaken, and sometimes sloppy in my thinking.
Thanks so much for making me try to think more clearly on this. I look forward to any further interaction and actually some interaction on this.
Post a Comment